by Younglove1999 54 Replies latest jw experiences
Welcome here! So happy for you & your husband & baby,,three more "freedom" rings!!!
I too was raised in the WT Society,,reevaluation really picked up for me when I too became a parent. Now I am a proud grandma,,my five children are free of WT baggage!
Welcome here! So happy for you & your husband & baby,,three more "freedom" rings!!!
I too was raised in the WT Society,,reevaluation really picked up for me when I too became a parent. Now I am a proud grandma,,my five children are free of WT baggage!
Welcome Young!
Your story is literally my fantasy story ! I wish my wife would be in complete agreeance to my point of view of the BORG. I have pretty much let her know about all WT issues like WT being associated with the UN for 10yrs, the blood issue, the shunning policy, Beth-sarim, and so on and so forth. She had the same answer to every single item presented and that was "you can't blame a whole organization for the errors of a few men". She even went to the extent of say that if she lost her life tomorrow for not accepting blood and next year the WT changed the policy, oh well, it was for a good cause and she would be resurected. (Not that I would let her refuse blood, haha!)
Congratulations and Peace.
Thank you for sharing your story. You can start to enjoy life together, you are both lucky. We Welcome you here.
Hi,Younglove
My computer crashed a couple of days ago and this is the first time I have been able to get on. Glad I got to see your post. My husband and I were JWs for over 45 years (raised in the WT) We were so glad to be out. We got out more or less at the same time, I was ahead of him in actually leaving by 4 months, but we were mentally out together. We are so happy for you. Leaving the WT is like leaving any other religion. It does not mean you have turned your back on God. So glad you found JWD. It is a blessing. When we came out there was no support like this. Here is our website: www.geocities.com/veliveleth
Love and hugs,
Velta
Around my 7 th month of pregnancy, my husband and I went out to lunch one day and I said to him “we need to get our act together because if we’re going to raise our daughter we need to be consistent”. To my relief, my husband said “I don’t know if I want to raise our daughter in this”-
I almost lost it- I was so relieved! Finally, this was the start of us finally being able to express how we really feel about doing all this!
Welcome YoungLove!
I was so happy to hear that you and your husband came to this conclusion at the same time! So many couples have the added trauma of one member deciding to get out and the other, well, you know.
Just keep writing and talking about it. There is a finite amount of things to say about it, and then you'll find you barely have it on your mind at all. I'm looking forward to that myself.
Congratulations on your baby too, I hope you're feeling better now. How long to go?
My husband and I have just been going back and forth so much lately about how we truly feel so happy to finally be doing what feels right to us.
My little one is almost 6 months old and I'm so excited to teach her how to be a good, caring person and look forward to just a wonderful life.
I used to get pretty stressed out about having a baby because I wondered how I would react to little issues like her wanting to do sports, or to bring me to mother's day breakfast at her day care. My husband and I always had conversations about how we'd probably do it anyways and not tell anyone. I know my husband has had his doubts for quite some time and before I started waking up, I remember being worried about his procrastination to get our Proxy forms filled out, or when I'd ask him a question about something I didn't understand, he'd say, "yeah, it's messed up. it really doesn't make sense, but they're going to say it means XYZ anyways." I remember thinking "oh no! he's turning apostate" but then thinking "hmm well his points are valid- I kind find anything to refute it."
At first during our "life changing lunch", my take was just that I really didn't care about religion. I coudl honestly say I had no desire to be spiritually minded. GOing out in service, attending meetings, etc. were just a waste of time. I could care less. My husband had true issues about the teachings, etc. and I could tell he really put a lot of thought and research into it. He said it always took him so long to do talks because he just could never truly convince himself that what the WTS said was right. HE said there were always too many gaps. etc.
I really didn't want to discuss all of that because at the time #1, I didn't really care, but also I didn't want to form a true opinion of the religion itself based on what my husband told me, but I wanted to see for myself. SO slowly over the next few months, I started seeing things differently. Remembering things from the past that really weren't right- that still bothered me. Like the time when I got privately reproved because I made out with a wordly guy and it kind of got out of hand. I didn't have sex or anything, but anyways- I knew it fell under the whole "Pornia" crap. The elders were so intent on getting every piece of detail. And then 2 years later when my husband and I confessed that we had had sex (we weren't married, just engaged), they asked me every single detail possible. IT was disgusting. I felt like I had been raped because I had to expose so much to them. IT was just humiliating. I might as well have been sitting there naked. It truly disgusted me and I really struggled with it even after I got reinstated. I couldn't look at those brothers ever ever again without feeling sick.
I've been keeping my journal at work and was home today and will be home during the weekend, so I may not get to post as much and I have a few situations that I wrote about that I look forward to posting.
I'm really glad to have met everyone here and look forward to geting to know everyone.
Well I'm glad that you're happy and settled, that is, it sounds like you're very much more confident now in both your own choices and the stability of your marriage. I get so happy when I hear that a couple has made it through this intact. You should also congratulate yourselves because part of that is because you both remained true to an intellectual integrity. I don't mean that to sound stuck-up, I just mean that neither of you were the type to shut a conversation or a thought pattern down because it was taking you out of your safety zone. That's rare and admirable among us - people raised as witnesses.
It's going to be hard sometimes, but fantastic other times. I'm finding that the rejection is the hardest. It only took a couple of months on this board and in an encyclopedia for me to knock down what I thought was a very sturdy belief system, but once I'd started on that it was so liberating and now I love knowing that I don't actually know very much at all. It makes the rest of my life seem like such an adventure.
The grief though; the loss of most of the people in my life, that's still difficult sometimes and why I've been on this board for so long. It's not even about them anymore, because I know that it was never a real love in the first place, but the fact that they all rejected me because they can't handle people in their lives who don't make them feel good about what they believe, well that feels like it's personal. I don't want them in my life, but it hurts that they don't want me either. I've heard that this feeling fades with time, and I'm looking forward to that.
Side note: isn’t it sad that as a couple, we weren’t comfortable being honest with each other because of our religion? One that encouraged communication and honesty among marriage mates, but reiterated limitations or repercussions of what would happen if we truly expressed our feelings?
so true! welcome to the board
Sass_my_frass, thank you for that.
That seems to be something I'm having a hard time dealing with. I think growing up in the truth, I was so conditioned (like most of us) to really obsess about what others think about us. Are we setting a "good example"? Who are we stumbling? What would so and so think? Etc. Etc. I always seemed to analyze my thoughts and try to be someone other than myself and always felt disappointed. I always wondered if people truly liked me or if they were just inviting me to be "encouraging" or so as to not leave us out (you know all that widening out stuff that always seemed to make gatherings awkward because there was the weird person who was only invited so we wouldn't get a talking to from the elders, but whom we all knew was just a freak and really didn't belong. (oh boy!-LOL) anyways, I never truly felt those "close brotherly" friendships. yes I had a huge social circle but friends? Not really- maybe one or two who I felt I could sort of be myself around, but for the most part it was hard. And now that all of a sudden I'm "cut off" from my friend, it's like it confirms that I was never liked in the first place. Like I wasted my time. I could have been "free" with real friends a long time ago! *shrug* I don't know. I spent years avoiding conversations with "wordly" people that I've met and worked with who seemed like awesome people, and now I feel like I have to play catch up. Thankfully, a lot of my "wordly" friends have been awesome and have welcomed me into their lives on a personal level and I find that a lot of people are just excited to start true friendships. I haev to say, it's now a blast to hang out with people whom I truly get along with and like rather than hanging out with the other couple in our hall just because we're the same age or whatever.
Not sure if any of that made sense.
There are just so many great stories, experiences, and people here that I wish I could just spend a whole day reading and responding. I can't wait to get to know everyone.
